Sulzberger praises NYT Thompson coverage

11/12/12 5:00 PM EST

New York Times Co. chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. on Monday commended the Times’ coverage of new chief executive Mark Thompson.

Sulzberger wrote to Times public editor Margaret Sullivan that he believed the paper’s reporting on Thompson — who is facing questions over his role at the BBC concerning the Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal — was thorough and done well.

“My conclusion is that The Times has pulled no punches in reporting on Mr. Thompson’s role and on the wider BBC story. And that’s not always easy,” she wrote.

Sullivan also spoke with the Times’ Matthew Purdy, who has reported on Thompson, about the paper’s coverage of the new chief executive. Purdy noted that top editors such as Jill Abramson and Dean Baquet expressed “a lot of interest” in the reporting but that there was “no interference.”

Sullivan closed her column by writing that “what happens in London reverberates in New York. And the chaos at the BBC – in which many of the people Mr. Thompson has supervised stepped aside as recently as this past weekend — feels uncomfortably close to home.”